from the nicely-done dept

Nearly two years ago, we wrote about an interview with Tom Delonge from the band Blink-182, in which his views on the music industry seemed very closely aligned to exactly what we've been saying for years:

The one thing I've learned is that, like any other type of art, it evolves. So if you're a business that supports a type of art, you need to evolve with the art. Now, a lot of things have happened that have made creating art a lot easier with the computer. And it's also made the distribution of art a lot easier.... What I have chosen to believe is that if you look at your band with a modern filter, your band has so much potential to have all these different elements about it. You can create all this really cool merchandise and concert/live experiences. You can create a really cool portal on your website. You can mix all these elements together and I always believe that if the tools are available, you can monetize all these other elements, and not really worry about selling the record. In fact, I believe that, you should take down every barrier and put as much music out there for free...

In my mind, the way the music industry is changing is that music is easier to make and it's easier to give away for free. And that will enable the band and the music and the art and everything to be bigger than it's ever been. It's just how do you collect that and how do you build your business...

So it comes as little surprise to find out that the band has decided to do something cool with fans who "infringe." As a whole bunch of you have been sending in, the band created "the film festival you didn't know you entered," in which they (with the help of AT&T who appears to be sponsoring the band) collected a bunch of unauthorized YouTube clips and put them together in a montage to launch their first new single in eight years:

The key is in the opening text:

AT&T helped us search YouTube for every instance of fans using our music without our permission.

from the another-one dept

This one's from a couple months back, but I missed it at the time. Reader Amber Walker sends in this fantastic video interview with Tom Delonge of the band Blink-182 from the Guitar Center blog, where he makes many of the points that we discuss here, noting how technology has made it cheaper to make, promote and distribute music, and he thinks the big opportunity is in giving your music away for free, and recognizing that there are other things to sell, such as merchandise, but also subscriptions and other types of events.

Some quotes:

The one thing I've learned is that, like any other type of art, it evolves. So if you're a business that supports a type of art, you need to evolve with the art. Now, a lot of things have happened that have made creating art a lot easier with the computer. And it's also made the distribution of art a lot easier.... What I have chosen to believe is that if you look at your band with a modern filter, your band has so much potential to have all these different elements about it. You can create all this really cool merchandise and concert/live experiences. You can create a really cool portal on your website. You can mix all these elements together and I always believe that if the tools are available, you can monetize all these other elements, and not really worry about selling the record. In fact, I believe that, you should take down every barrier and put as much music out there for free...

In my mind, the way the music industry is changing is that music is easier to make and it's easier to give away for free. And that will enable the band and the music and the art and everything to be bigger than it's ever been. It's just how do you collect that and how do you build your business...

I think the internet's a funny thing, because anything... that cuts through the noise on the internet will get found. The beautiful thing about the Western world is that all good art will get found no matter what. It just might take a little bit more time for some than others.... To try to really make a presence known, a band needs to capitvate people online first, no matter what -- it can be with a video or a film. It can be a song or a live broadcast. It needs to be something that's really clever. To do that, you should study the campaigns that work....

Of course, he notes that at the core of this is still good music. He says that you don't remember a band years later just for the marketing, but you need that to get attention, and then you need the music to live for itself, which leads to an interesting mantra:

The true art is not just creating the music. The true art is seeing how many people that music can touch in various ways. That's the art. Because you can be as artistic as you want and no one hears it and no one likes it. The true art is trying to break through the noise and getting millions of people to notice.

Sounds quite a bit like the difference between invention and innovation that we talk about, doesn't it? Nice to see yet another artist who has this all figured out.